In your guide, you say how stats should be....but....how are yours laid out? I have 45 base strength thus far...i'm only lvl 11...but..not sure how high i should really pump the base amount.

For skills....do you really need to max Cold Mastery? could you leave it at base level...and let +11 or so skills pump it up...or would a lvl 31 or 32 cold mastery truly be worth it? if I left it base I could probably max charged bolt and make lightning/chain lightning do a lot more, or possibly even ice bolt for FO, but that would be a lot worse probably...

Bottom line...how much strength do you think would be good to get base...and is pumping Cold Mastery so high worth it..or would +11/+12 to skills be enough for it...and also, how much MF would be ideal for the Pit, in your experience (or anywhere, for that matter)

So -100 is all I need...or would even more help my cold damage a lot more?? I'm just wondering what would be better......pumping charged bolt and upping my lightning damage by a lot....or a few points in Cold Mastery to lower resistance even more. I should have about +13 to cold at least....so maybe just a few in Cold Mastery and let my +skills do the rest? (I have 4 cold skill charms btw too)

Your STR should be based on your equipment. I use skullders until I can get an Enigma. Skullders has a 97 STR req. So that's what my STR is.

You don't have to max CM. I recommend 10 in my guide. And to be an effective Dual Tree sorc its necessary. As long as you have around 15 in CM after +skills you should be fine. For MFing areas with LI monsters, like the Pit, you want a quick way to dispatch them. Especially the LI archers in the Pit as they can spawn with some deadly mods. Another reason to get 10 base into CM is if you ever want to run Meph or any other act bosses. The cold tree with it's -resists with CM just rock against high resistance monsters.

Ideal MF would be as much as you can pack on without losing power. You want to keep around +10 lightning skills and +5 cold skills. Resists aren't that important to Pit running but they still should be above 0.

I have 409% MF for Pit running. I recommend at least 300% but you will get much better results with 400%+.

If you haven't run the Pit yet, just remember to run allot of them, be patient and kill every last monster. I got both my IK armors from devilkins hiding in a corner.